


Faith

by SweetDarkness



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 09:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21491797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetDarkness/pseuds/SweetDarkness
Summary: Are soulmates bound to find each other?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	Faith

_“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”(1 Corinthians 13:1) _

Dean Winchester never wanted to bond. Never, ever in his life did he want to find that kind of love. It just isn’t productive. He saw what it did to his parents.

When his mother died by the hands of Azazel, he had to watch as his father, who he always saw as a superhero, became the most angry and obsessed creature to walk the face of earth — and later got killed because of that obsession. Since then, he promised he wouldn’t let himself have faith in love.

The truth is, he didn’t have faith in most good things back then, because he has always had a front row seat to all the evil, he fights it everyday and has lost so much to it. He doesn’t bat an eye anymore when some crazy creature tries to kill him. His thought process was always the same: If god doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. There's no rhyme or reason — just random, horrible, evil — and he gets it, okay. But if god is out there...what's wrong with him? How does he live with himself, you know, why doesn't he help? If there is a god, he is a sadist a-hole who plays with people’s lives, and the bond is just another tool to do it.

No one has ever really confirmed exactly what it is that causes soulmates to Bond. Biologists have claimed it’s a chemical thing. Chemicals in the brain alert someone to their best possible chance of having healthy offspring and continuing the species. But how does that explain non-heterosexual bonds or infertile adults? They’re less common, but would suggest something deeper than pure chemical reactions. Thousands upon thousands studies were made: ancestry, blood type, reincarnation, scent. You name it and it has probably been tested.Entire religions have risen and fallen based on ideas of what causes Bonding. 

Some of the latest theories involve geography: in a world of seven billion people, how is it possible that so many people find their soulmates? Others have began studying the potential for multiple soulmates for a single person, examining the validity of Bonded polyamorous couples. But what is known is this: when a person turns sixteen years old, a drawing or phrase typically appears as an image beneath the top layers of skin, similar to a tattoo, with the same placement and identical to their soulmate’s.

When Dean woke up on January 24, 1995 and his mark hadn’t appeared, he jumped out of bed and ran to Sammy’s bed to tell him the news with the biggest smile of enthusiasm. Obviously, Sammy was sad about it and had said he didn't understand Dean’s happiness. Of course the kid would be a believer, Dean thought. But that night as he took a shower and examined each centimeter of his skin finding nothing, a bit of disappointment crawled its way into his eyes.

Since then his faith had been tested even more times, especially when Sammy turned sixteen and, unlike his brother, got a small chrysanthemum tattoo on his wrist, Dean waited for the inevitable to happen.

When Sammy walked out on him and Dad to go to college, and met a beautiful blonde named Jess with the same tattoo as his, Dean had hoped for the best, but knew it would inevitably end badly. Then Dad went missing, and he and Sammy tried to find him, Jess burned in the ceiling as their mother did so many years before, by the hands of the same demon, leading Sam to the same revenge path their dad had walked, and died in, the year before.

_Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; Where there are tongues, they will be restrained; Where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.”(Corinthians 13:8)_

After that, he was more than thankful to not have a mark after watching that loss break the strongest and sweetest person he knew. He watched as his brother died in front of him, stabbed in the back by Jake with a knife, during that stupid Azazel demon child camp. That was his breaking point, holding his brother’s lifeless body in his arms. He couldn’t lose him, so he made a deal, Sammy’s life for his own death at the end of one year. That’s what anyone would do, right?

The worst thing was watching Sam think he didn’t deserve to be alive and wanting to die, because living without his soulmate was so painful. In the following year, he did cheer up at some point trying to make Dean’s last year better, but Dean was broken nonetheless.

Then there was the Hell period and yes, it was shitty, but he really doesn’t like to think about it, preferring to muse over other things instead. 

What followed though, are his best dreams and worst nightmares coming true. He is alive. Really alive. He did wake up six feet under, but still… alive. Through some creature’s work. His life is an actual joke and it’s the worst he has ever heard.

Years ago Dean got to the conclusion that he just doesn’t know how to live with half explained answers. So he summons the damn thing and as the man with the most beautiful sharp blue eyes makes his way to him, Dean has to fight every sign his body is giving him to get lost in those eyes and stabs him instead.

“Who are you?” Dean hisses.

“I’m Castiel.”

“No shit, I mean what are you?”

“I'm an angel of the Lord,” answers Castiel, arching an eyebrow.

“Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing.”

“This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.” The blue eyed one answers, tilting his head like a mischievous cat.

The following days proved all Dean’s beliefs wrong, when he found himself trusting the man and ignoring everything he spent so many years working to be, and Castiel seemed so dedicated to making him believe, even more focused in that than in his supposed Heaven mission. To his surprise, Dean finds it way too easy to let Cas in. Within knowing him for only a couple of weeks, Cas broke every wall Dean spent his whole life building, making it so easy to smile and to feel like himself again even after all his loss and especially after Hell. One night after a particularly difficult hunt, Dean finds himself doing what he promised never to do: He prays.

“Well, I feel stupid doing this. But I am fresh out of options. So please. I need some help... I'm praying, okay? Come on. Please!” he cries out biting back tears.

“Prayer is a sign of faith. This is a good thing, Dean,” says the angel, slowly approaching him.

As Castiel answers his prayer, Dean feels as if the world makes some sense. He focuses whatever faith he has left entirely on the angel, until a sharp pain flares up his arm, and he falls to the floor clinging to the soft skin on his forearm. In a second Cas’s arms are around him and his touch alone makes the pain stop. Mostly because Cas is looking at him like he has just witnessed Dean hang the moon. Getting back up to his feet, Dean slowly reaches out to his sleeve, lifting it up a few centimeters until he can see the blue ink seeping through his skin in the shape of a wing.

“You did it. I thought you weren’t going to be able to do it this time. When I met you, you were so broken and unhopeful I—” Cas starts to say excitedly.

“What happened?” Dean interrupts. “What is this? How? Wha—”

He stops as Castiel rolls up his own sleeve and shows him the exact same mark.

“I’m your soulmate? Is that even possible? Why didn't you tell me?”

“Dean, you didn't believe I was real, and then you didn’t believe I was good, you can’t love someone if you have no faith in them, plus, you wouldn’t have believed me anyway.” Cas reasons. And yes, he has a point, but Dean is still slightly pissed.

“I have told you before, in other lives, when you weren’t so angry with God… but the point is, you did it, so now I can show you.” Cas reaches out a hand to touch Dean’s jaw and hesitantly places a kiss on his chapped lips, earning himself a dumbstruck Dean until the memories start to seep into his mind. 

The years of waiting. The thousands of lifetimes with Cas: the ones where he had believed from the start and the mark had appeared on the right time; the ones where he and Cas never got to be close because he was so broken; the ones where he died and Cas had to watch him from far away in heaven; and the best ones, like he was going to make this one be, when he and Cas get to be together through all his life and afterlife, until Dean has to be reborn and promises to find and love him again, like he does every time. And this time he does. Through all the pain, the death and the hatred. He found his angel again, and that’s how he knows everything will be okay, Sammy will be okay and, for once, he can finally let himself breathe knowing something he could never believe before: He is going to be ok, because with those eyes looking at him in so much awe, how can he not believe? 

_Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (Corinthians 13:4-8)_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it.
> 
> V.


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